Every business can fail at times to meet their deliverables. It might be a simple misdelivered customer order or maybe something more serious like a fire shutting down your factory. These things happen. The law provides remedies to these situations, whether identified in the contract between the parties or in the common law. This often means that the party who fails to perform (for whatever reason) will be required to place the other party in the position where they would have been if the contract had been performed as expected.
What about when it really gets weird, though? What about when a war breaks out or other societal calamity makes fulfilling a contract impossible? That is the province of the force majeure clause. French for ‘Superior Force,’ the clause is very often included in contracts but, by its nature, very seldom invoked. It typically provides both parties to the contract the ability to withhold performance during a calamity which makes performance impossible. This is sometimes referred to as an ‘Act of God’ clause, although an ‘Act of God’ may also be just one part of a force majeure clause – a peril outside of human control which cannot be forseen or protected against.
Drawing the lines of when and how these clauses apply is the work of the courts. One of the leading Territorial cases on the matter is First American Development Group/Carib, LLC vs. WestLB AG, a 2010 decision arising from the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. In that case, First American owned land in Chocolate Hole, St. John. It sought to develop a luxury residential community and received a $60 Million Dollar loan from WestLB, a German bank. In exchange, First American gave WestLB a mortgage on the property.
The project slowed in 2009 as the First American saw that it would require additional financing but could not secure that financing due to a global recession. First American defaulted on its obligation, failing to make payments. WestLB sought assistance from the Court, asking that a receiver be appointed to oversee the property and the project so that its interests could be protected. First American attempted to invoke the force majeure clause, arguing that the global recession made performance on their contract impossible. In the Loan Agreement, the clause stated that First American could be excused for performance for up to 90 days upon the happening of a qualifying ‘event,’ which the clause described as:
such event consists of an act of God (such as tornado, flood, hurricane, etc.), fires and other casualties or condemnation; strikes, lockouts or other labor disturbances (not specific to the Project); riots, insurrections or civil unrest; embargoes, shortages or unavailability of materials, supplies, labor, equipment and systems that first arise after the Effective Date, but only to the extent cause by another act, event or condition covered by this clause (b); sabotage, terrorism; vandalism, or a change in Law or any new Law is enacted after the Effective Date (unless Borrower, in the exercise of due diligence and prudent judgment, should have anticipated such enactment).
It was the job of the Superior Court to determine if the recession claimed by First American met the level of ‘event’ for purposes of the force majeure clause.
The Court held that even if First American did adequately prove that a recession was the cause of its failures, “a worldwide economic crisis does not constitute a Force Majuere event under the definition First American agreed to in the Loan Agreement.” The Court then ticked off the various perils specifically identified in the clause and ultimately held that First American could not utilize the clause as a defense in this case. The Court ruled for WestLB and granted them the receiver that they sought to oversee the project. (It should be noted that different proofs might have resulted in a different decision from the Court and the case should not be read to say that such an economic crisis could never invoke force majeure – just that First American could not prove that here.)
Even when there is not a clause -- or a written contract at all, there might still be relief in the doctrine of impossibility. Impossibility is a defense to a party’s failure to perform under a contract. The Uniform Commercial Code is codified as Title 11A of the V.I. Code. The UCC sets a baseline standard of commercial expectations and legal standards to be utilized between merchants. It provides that a seller is excused from performing under a contract when
performance as agreed has been made impracticable by the occurrence of a contingency the non-occurrence of which was a basic assumption on which the contract was made or by compliance in good faith with any applicable foreign or domestic governmental regulation or order whether or not it later proves to be invalid.
In the context of the current Coronavirus crisis, if the Government declares your business to be non-essential and restricts your company’s work, there are good arguments for impossibility as a successful defense – even if no force majeure clause exists.
Whether and in what cases these defenses might apply to your company is something that must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
In the meantime, wash your hands.
If you have questions about how Coronavirus has impacted specific contracts for your business – or this has raised any other questions, please call for Mark at 340-774-4547 or send him an email at mark@usvilaw.com.